Items	Fiscal Year	Estimated sorted collection (tons)	Actual sorted collection (tons)	Recycled (tons)	Number of municipalities with sorted collection
Number of municipalities	Rate (%)	Population coverage (%)
Steel containers	2007	388,507	275,353	270,312	1,795	98.8%	98.4%
2006	388,178	304,578	299,058	1,793	98.1%	(98.2%)
2005	522,123	329,535	321,245	1,826	99.0%	(98.4%)
2004	515,802	362,207	355,106	2,995	98.1%	(97.3%)
2003	507,815	393,650	387,875	3,116	98.8%	(98.5%)
2002	620,045	419,667	415,364	3,123	96.5%	(97.7%)
2001	598,648	461,357	450,229	3,104	95.6%	(97.3%)
2000	576,461	484,752	476,177	3,065	94.9%	(96.9%)
1999	636,099	471,127	456,892	2,625	80.7%	(91.8%)
1998	590,858	471,638	461,347	2,572	79.0%	(91.4%)
1997	526,701	464,662	443,506	2,411	74.1%	(86.4%)
Aluminum containers	2007	165,588	126,334	124,398	1,799	99.1%	(98.5%)
2006	162,226	134,458	132,091	1,800	98.5%	(98.3%)
2005	179,393	139,535	137,015	1,827	99.1%	(97.5%)
2004	175,560	139,477	137,905	2,988	97.9%	(97.2%)
2003	170,742	139,321	137,055	3,108	98.5%	(98.5%)
2002	189,519	145,789	144,101	3,130	96.8%	(97.6%)
2001	181,111	141,408	137,753	3,112	95.9%	(97.4%)
2000	172,889	135,910	132,386	3,078	95.3%	(97.0%)
1999	187,025	128,541	124,690	2,647	81.4%	(92.0%)
1998	170,535	121,214	117,315	2,587	79.5%	(91.7%)
1997	148,885	112,527	107,455	2,420	74.3%	(86.7%)
Corrugated cardboard boxes	2007	739,893	583,195	579,892	1,627	89.6%	(89.0%)
2006	724,537	584,312	580,229	1,588	86.9%	(85.4%)
2005	679,224	554,820	549,464	1,551	84.1%	(81.2%)
2004	660,852	547,149	542,163	2,391	78.3%	(79.6%)
2003	641,117	554,309	538,043	2,446	77.5%	(80.4%)
2002	486,107	502,903	498,702	2,105	65.1%	(72.0%)
2001	458,519	448,855	438,598	1,942	59.8%	(67.1%)
2000	434,888	380,290	372,576	1,728	53.5%	(61.0%)
Drink cartons	2007	29,096	16,586	16,327	1,405	77.4%	(86.6%)
2006	27,677	15,921	15,735	1,355	74.2%	(84.3%)
2005	28,352	16,320	15,956	1,344	72.9%	(80.6%)
2004	26,657	15,807	15,402	1,966	64.4%	(78.3%)
2003	24,911	16,636	15,742	2,031	64.4%	(79.0%)
2002	35,502	15,696	15,358	1,849	57.2%	(74.1%)
2001	31,514	13,136	12,435	1,756	54.1%	(70.9%)
2000	28,065	12,565	12,071	1,599	49.5%	(69.1%)
1999	36,626	9,574	9,416	1,176	36.2%	(54.9%)
1998	30,072	8,939	8,670	1,111	34.1%	(54.7%)
1997	23,028	6,644	6,419	993	30.5%	(43.4%)
Total	2007	3,456,891	2,820,594	2,748,077	—	—
2006	3,383,677	2,811,293	2,734,460	—	—
2005	3,643,250	2,731,836	2,645,388	—	—
2004	3,427,713	2,657,803	2,580,780	—	—
2003	3,193,868	2,626,089	2,538,016	—	—
2002	3,278,075	2,429,560	2,367,721	—	—
2001	3,013,827	2,303,034	2,211,025	—	—
2000	2,650,056	2,103,213	1,994,612	—	—
1999	1,986,961	1,450,822	1,375,661	—	—
1998	1,820,535	1,383,022	1,315,218	—	—
1997	1,543,999	1,249,418	1,175,189	—	—

* The number of municipalities in the white trays category refers to the number of municipalities that carry out collection only for white trays.

* “Plastic containers and packages” refers to all types of plastic containers and packages including white trays.

$ ^{*} $ Above figures are rounded off; therefore, the total may not equal the breakdowns.

$ ^{*} $ The total population nationwide at the end of March 2008 is 127.73 million.

* The number of municipalities at the end of March 2008 is 1,816 (including Tokyo 23 wards).

* All of “Annual estimated sorted collection,” “Annual actual sorted collection,” and “Annual volume recycled” include the volume independently treated by municipalities.

tion accounted for 1,627, which is substantially more than in the case of plastic containers and packaging and paper containers and packaging, which were made targets of the Containers and Packaging Recycling Law at the same time. The background to this high figure is possibly the acceptance framework of cardboard has been firmly established.

According to the Cardboard Recycling Association, used cardboard can be recycled into new cardboard about seven times.

The consumption weight of cardboard was 8.887 million tons in fiscal 2007 and collected waste cardboard rose to 8.607 tons, the recycling rate (ratio of the weight of collected waste-paper to the consumption weight by manufacturers) was 114.3%. However, it is presumed there was an excessive import of recycled waste cardboard in fiscal 2007, the final recycling rate when considering this factor reduces to 100.09%.

### B. Paper

The recycling rate and reuse rate of paper in fiscal 2007 were 74.5% and 61.5%, respectively. (Figure 2-22)

Although it is evident that there is a limit to the increase of